The name's the problem
I was an American Car Care Centers Inc. (ACCC) dealer for six years, and the single biggest problem with the program's image is the name itself.
If you are primarily a tire dealer—70 percent or more of total sales in tires/wheels—then the group's name appears to promote automotive service and/or repair instead of tires. Also, for those of us in Southern California, where imported vehicles easily outnumber American brands, the name also is confusing because it implies that the dealership specializes in servicing American vehicles.
So why would a tire marketing group administered through 14 tire distributors go to market with a name that implies its dealers concentrate on maintaining and repairing American cars?
The name indirectly ignores tires, wheels and foreign vehicle brands, which means, in effect, that it is misleading at best and confusing at worst.
Why is the program so large with such a bad name? From my experience, it appears that the overwhelming majority of ACCC dealers derive the majority of their profits from automotive service, most of the ACCC dealers reside in areas where American car brands are still more prevalent than foreign brands, and the ACCC program is, by far, the cheapest tire franchise program in the marketplace today.
But trying to “rebrand” a program with a horrible name is akin to putting lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig in the end.
Steve Maddox
CEO
Anaheim Wheel & Tire
Anaheim, Calif.
Nice job
Thanks for being such a competitive publication.
Elgie R. Sims
Owner
Sims Wrecker Service
El Dorado, Ark.
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Thanks for the good newspaper. Good info, well done.
Steve Gee
President
Gee Tire Inc.
Rossville, Kan.
We need tires!
In the Aug. 4 issue of Tire Business, we read with great interest your article about Michelin North America Inc. launching two new ultra-high performance tires.
It is truly amazing the sheer number of models and sizes of tires Michelin manufactures. It's too bad we, as a 38-year Michelin dealer, cannot get the important models and sizes we need—especially the P185/65R15 Harmony model, which has been out of stock for at least eight months.
That's an extremely popular size. We have about a bazillion Prius and Honda vehicles in our area, and it's a very popular Honda Civic size, too. We've been out of the tires since before Christmas.
We called Michelin and were told that tire is made in France, and the company here doesn't have access to the production schedule over there.
Doug Pahl
Owner
Pahl Tire Co. Inc.
Madison, Wis.